Calif. Initiative Lets Low-Income Homes Bask in Solar Power

Published: September 14, 2010

SAN DIEGO -- Hacienda Townhomes apartment complex sits in a struggling section of this city's downtown, steps from an intersection previously known as "Crack Alley." The building's beige, boxy walls house some of the region's poorest residents.

Locked gates and thick bars separate tenants from a homeless shelter, liquor store and tattoo parlor. But on the rooftop, 96 solar panels glint in the afternoon sun.

Solar power arrived at Hacienda Townhomes this summer, changing this building's reputation and cutting residents' electricity bills. The first of its kind in San Diego County, Hacienda is among dozens of similar projects under way in the Golden State through a program called Multifamily Affordable Solar Housing, or MASH. A slice of the $3.2 billion California Solar Initiative (CSI), MASH plans to spend $108 million by 2016 putting solar panels on low-income homes.

"It's designed to bring the benefits of solar to customers who otherwise wouldn't be able to use it," said Gary Barsley, manager of customer self-generation for utility Southern California Edison Co. "It allows us to have solar available as an option to more of our customers."

MASH could have important political implications, said Paul Bledsoe, strategist at the bipartisan National Commission on Energy Policy. The project could help address a criticism, he said, that renewable energy programs cater largely to the wealthy. For solar power to succeed, he said, it must become mainstream.

"As a matter of government policy, it's critical that working Americans are able to gain access to it," Bledsoe said.

So far that has not been the case. A search of grants given under CSI shows that the highest residential subsidies have gone to San Mateo, Sonoma, Napa and Santa Barbara counties, among the state's most exclusive. That has raised criticisms from watchdog groups. Electricity customers fund CSI subsidies through a surcharge on bills.

"Even with the subsidies, solar is expensive," Spatt explained. "It's higher-income people who can afford to take advantage."

Providing money to lower-income people for renewable power is not as cost-effective as giving it to wealthier groups, said Dallas Burtraw, senior fellow at Resources for the Future, a nonprofit conducting research on energy and other issues. Upper middle-class people, he said, "are large energy consumers who often consume energy inefficiently." Lower-income people might use older, inefficient refrigerators, Burtraw said, but "they tend not to consume as much as the middle class."

But at Hacienda Townhomes, the solar panels have dramatically changed how residents spend limited money.

Previously when tenant Omega Hatch, 23, paid her full electric bill, "It was cutting it real close," Hatch said. "It would leave me with nothing." Many months she paid only a portion and watched her debt climb.

After the solar arrived, Hatch saw her bill fall to $56 in August from an earlier amount of about $90 per month for the two-bedroom apartment she shares with her husband and son.

"Thank God, because I could use the money elsewhere," Hatch said. "I have a 7-year-old, he's about to go back to school. Any penny helps me get what I need to do for him," including buying shoes and school supplies, she said.

Multiple-subsidy funding

Hacienda Townhomes received the solar panels after managers with San Diego Community Housing Corp., which oversees the apartment complex, decided to pursue MASH.

"It's bringing the resources to the people that need it most," said Randall Simmrin, asset manager with Community Housing.

Of the 11 low-income sites that Community Housing manages, Hacienda houses the lowest-income residents, said Kimberly Paul, the group's vice president of community development. Some Hacienda residents earn less than $27,500 annually for a family of four, or about 30 percent of the area's median income. Rents range from $567 to $991 per month for a two-bedroom apartment, depending on the residents' income.